Quote:
Originally posted by blackamus
I just don't understand it. This guy makes some outlandish, counterintuitive, and entirely bogus argument and it seems that all of you little Rob Neyer's of the world are eager to jump on the bandwagon. What gives here? We all realize that their is a certain amount of "luck" involved in whether or not a batted ball is a hit or not (i.e. every well struck ball is not a hit whilst some poorly struck balls are). But, how sexy does that sound? Not nearly as sexy as saying that a pitcher has "no effect on whether or not a batted ball becomes a hit".
Stats are obviously one important analytical tool. However, when mathematical evidence points to an irrational solution, that solution is usually discarded.
And while I'm on this train...F**k Sabrmetrics. If baseball were run as sabrmetricians wished it would be a boring and aesthetically displeasing game. A walk is quite obviously not as good as hit. Batting average quite obviously does matter seeing as it usually accounts for at least 75% of OBP. But it sounds so much better to make ridiculous counterintuitive arguments such as "batting average doesn't matter" or "a pitcher has no effect on whether a batted ball is a hit" followed by shoddy and selective statistical records to back up said nonsense.
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Its probably not even worth it, but I'd like to point out that the sabremetric offensive philosophy is not based on taking walks. Its based on hitters swinging at pitches that they can hit hard somewhere. Walks are a byproduct of this philosophy. No one ever said batting average was not important, but it has been traditionally overrated.
I'd like to see an explanation of how McCracken's argument is entirely bogus.
edit: typos